


Boxing Night

by jat_sapphire



Category: The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: Boxing Day, Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-18 16:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21980098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jat_sapphire/pseuds/jat_sapphire
Summary: If you work on Christmas, Boxing Day is when you can relax with those you love.
Relationships: William Bodie/Ray Doyle
Kudos: 43





	Boxing Night

Bodie had fallen asleep on the sofa. No wonder, really. Boxing Day telly was even duller than Christmas telly, and that was unmemorable : carols and the Queen's speech, maybe a few films played so often that Bodie and Doyle had almost memorised every line of dialog.

The can of lager that Bodie had been drinking was on the floor, so it hadn't spilled. The knitted throw that Doyle's sister had insisted on making for him was draped across Bodie's arms, midsection and legs, though one foot was sticking out the end. It was a dull green, not a colour Doyle much liked or one that especially suited Bodie, but the yarn was thick and the throw was warm, at any rate.

Doyle sat on the coffee table and looked at his partner. Bodie hadn't had much sleep these past few days, and Christmas Day had been especially long and active. They'd caught the bombers, anyway, and not even had to kill them, so they were in cells at HQ waiting to be interrogated and charged. That was Cowley's problem. He'd let them know if he needed them. Doyle hoped he wouldn't. He had the reports, and they needed the rest.

Bodie still had darkish streaks under his eyes, where his eyelashes curled like fringe. His blue-veined eyelids twitched once, and his mouth moved a little. His eyebrows lifted and fell, just the least bit, and Doyle wondered what he was dreaming. He swallowed, the knob of his Adam's apple bobbing, and Doyle's hands clenched as he swallowed himself.

Bodie's cheek was shadowed with the stubble of his beard, but the roughness there seemed, really, to set off the smoothness of the rest of his skin. His uneven eyebrows looked as soft as fur, and his fringe was tangled at the ends, making Doyle's fingers itch to straighten it, comb through it, feel its silky strands and the creases in the forehead below.

He didn't look happy.

"What's botherin' you, mate?" Doyle murmured, clasping his hands together to be sure he didn't reach out.

Often, when Bodie was awake, he looked up through those lashes and was suddenly a child, innocent and wistful, and Doyle hardly ever withstood that wordless plea. _Have your chip butty, your Swiss roll, your chocolate biccies,_ he'd say, to turn that drooping mouth to a smile, to see the glint in those deep-sky eyes. To make him a happy child again.

Bodie never spoke of his youth. His reasons for running away to sea were as secret as the dream he was having right now, under Doyle's eyes, but if he'd been happy, surely he would have gone home at some point since. Wouldn't he?

And if he'd ever watched over Doyle's sleep the way Doyle was watching now, if his mouth watered to taste Doyle's skin or his fingers ached to touch, wouldn't he have done it? At some time since they were partnered, one of the times he'd visited Doyle in hospital, helped him bathe or dress while he was healing?

 _Boosted me rear end up the stairs in front of him, tousled me hair ..._ as he had done.

_Maybe. Maybe?_

Bodie took a quick, deeper breath and turned on his back, running one shoulder into the cushions of the sofa and twisting his legs in the throw. He kicked once, twice, and woke.

Doyle, startled, could have risen to his feet, but didn't move quickly enough. So he was still there, not a foot away, his hands folded and his face, no doubt, showing everything he felt. All he could do was clear his throat and babble. "You all right, mate? Need anything? Was just about to turn in m'self, just checkin'. OK?" Bodie just gazed, eyes clouded and vulnerable, and Doyle's heart twisted. Without thinking, his hand went out, and then he saw it and stopped, and Bodie's mouth made a new strained shape so Doyle finished the gesture and touched Bodie's cheek, just fingertips, so gently that he barely felt skin.

"Bodie," he said, and the sound of that was all wrong too, yearning.

"Ray," Bodie said. His own hand emerged from the throw, cupped the back of Doyle's where it still hovered near his face, and brought it nearer, held it there. His eyes seemed darker, and he licked his lips.

So Doyle had to kiss him.

His lips were dry, not tacky with lipstick like a bird's. As Doyle lifted his head, Bodie followed and opened his mouth, so Doyle tasted the lager and the sour, stale sleep taste. He usually disliked that, even when it was his own, but now he didn't care, because it was Bodie's mouth that moved against his own, smiling, eager, and Bodie's tongue that twined around and rasped against his own. Doyle wanted never to stop.

"Mmm," Bodie said, and Doyle knew everything he meant. Their kiss became messier, wetter, glorious. Bodie put his arms around Doyle and drew him closer, held tighter, kept kissing.

At last the kiss slowed and they drew a little apart. Bodie's smile was like a child's on Christmas morning, getting everything he'd asked Father Christmas for.

"You said you were turning in?" he almost whispered, and his eyes were like blue stained glass with the sun behind it.

"Join me?" Doyle asked, his mouth stretched with a smile he could not help.

Bodie answered by sitting up, untangling himself from the throw, and taking Doyle's hand to pull the two of them into the bedroom and peel off their clothes.

Under the bedclothes together, they kissed some more and ran their hands everywhere, learning each other by touch and taste until they humped and sucked like starving men, sweating and pushing at each other as if they wanted to get under each other's skin and become one creature. Doyle couldn't decide where smell and taste was best: the side of Bodie's neck, the shell of his ear, the pebbled aureolae or the peaked nipples, the little cup of his navel, the bush of his pubic hair, the crease at the top of his thigh, the sac of his bollocks, or his cock, its weeping head or the ravelled foreskin or the burst of semen as he came. Or the mixture of both of them, as they both tried to lick up the mess and kiss it from each other's mouths.

Later, as they lay twined as close as they could hold each other, Bodie said, "Me mum used to watch me sleep when I was a little lad."

"Yeh?" Doyle responded. "Her first kid, were you? I was me mum's, 'n she told me later she wanted to check I was breathin'."

"When you were in hospital, after Mayli, while you were, you were ...." Bodie's voice died away.

"I was breathing then," Doyle said, holding tighter, until Bodie stopped the faint shudder that ran through his solid torso, his muscled arms, his broad hands.

"Every time I checked," Bodie agreed.

"Check whenever you want," Doyle said, and Bodie tucked his face into Doyle's neck for a while.

"Every night?" he said eventually, muffled by Doyle's skin.

"Every hour, if you want," Doyle answered. 

"OK." Bodie sounded relieved, and Doyle held on and felt breath go in and out, securely, steadily, until he fell asleep.

***

Some uncounted hours later, Doyle surfaced slowly from a dream he didn't remember, gradually realising that he had turned on his back, and warm fingers were stroking his chest, carding through the hair, circling his nipples, following the trail to the top of his pubic hair and then skimming back to his chest again. Without opening his eyes, he smiled and writhed a little, loving the love in the touch.

"Like a sleepy moggy, you," Bodie murmured, so near that Doyle felt the breath on his own lips.

"Purr," he said, and then Bodie kissed him. He was still sleep-flavoured, and now Doyle's own mouth tasted bad too, and he still didn't care, savoured the slow, sensual brush and press of Bodie's mouth, dry and cool and then wet and hot, waking Doyle like coffee and sending waves of increasing pleasure all through his body.

"Breathed all night, didn't we?" he said some time later, hand tucked at the nape of Bodie's neck, fingers in the smooth waves and stroking the warm dip between his tendons. An inch or two down, the same back against the grain. Bodie nodded, his cheek rubbing Doyle's shoulder. Like a--"You're the cat," Doyle said, raising his petting hand to feel more of Bodie's head, crown to nape. "The one walks by itself," he added, barely aware he was speaking aloud at all.

"Home now," Bodie said, pulling Doyle closer, lipping at his skin.

Doyle raised his chin, took a deep breath and let the tears prickle, remembering all the homes he'd had to leave or realised had never been real. Temporary as this flat was, tenuous as their lives were as long as they stayed on the Squad, this tangible strength and passion would keep him safe, keep him close, and make every day a holiday and a gift. "I love you," he said, and Bodie murmured in his sleep.

Doyle didn't care. He could say it again, every day, like breathing. Like coming home.


End file.
